Emily's Epic Escapades: January and February Reading Wrap-Ups!

January and February Wrap-Ups!

Life has been kind of chaotic these last two months! With moving to a new city and starting a new job I have been busy in ways that I haven't been in a long time. Grad school has been tough for me this semester because I am just ready to be done and be an official librarian! I have some semblance of a social life now so balancing reading, work, grad school, and friends is really tough! With that being said, most of the books I have read so far this year have been for school. I am in a Poetry for Children and Young Adults class and we have been ready a ton of poetry books for each module. Like with my other courses I am not going to write my thoughts on the books I read for my poetry class on this page since I have to write about them in a blog for that class. If you are interested in reading them, check out my blog for school theredheadedravenclaw.blogspot.com. I'm hoping that I will figure out a better balance and be able to read more soon, but here are the books I read in January and February of 2020. ~Em

This is the story of Thomas who inherits a secret box after his grandmother dies. Inside the box there is a garden. There are others who have boxes with gardens inside and they make up a society of people who can make things from their gardens. When members of the society begin dying off, it is up to Thomas to figure out what is going and how to care for the garden inside his box. This story started off great. It was reminiscent of Neil Gaiman and a spooky version of The Secret Garden. Then it got incredibly boring and although there were twists and turns, they were not surprising to me. Rating: 2/5

Long ago there were three sisters who were drowned after being accused of witchcraft in a small town. Now the sisters' spirits return every year during the Swan season to possess three girls in the town to kill three boys for revenge. In the current day, Penny knows the Swan sisters cannot be stopped and yet when a new boy comes to town she does everything she can to prevent him from being taken by the sisters. I really enjoyed this book. It had a great dark and spooky atmosphere. There were twists I wasn't expecting and I was thoroughly impressed by this take on a witch trial type of story. Rating: 4/5

This is a really cute graphic novel all about the struggles and successes of being a book lover. It talks about the pain of knowing you will never be able to read all of the books in the world, the joys of new book smells, and the feeling of avoiding all responsibilities to read when you just can't put your book down. I really enjoyed this and recommend it for everyone who loves reading. Rating: 4/5

In this graphic novel series, Kami Garcia is re-imagining the origin stories of the Teen Titans. The first is Raven's story. I felt that there wasn't enough information about how Raven got her powers in this graphic novel. The artwork was pretty, but it was difficult at times to understand what was happening because the panels jumped around quite a bit. When Raven was on page she was generally colored in purple hues which was a nice touch. I am interested to continue on with the series! Rating: 3/5

This is the second book in the Arc of the Scythe series. It follows pretty soon after the conclusion of the first book where Citra has become Scythe Anastasia. I had incredibly high expectations for this book and I was let down. I didn't care for the new character's plot line and when exciting things were happening I found myself not caring about them either. I'm still planning on finishing the series, but I am hesitant about how I will feel. Rating: 3/5

No Rating - Read for Poetry for Children and Young Adults

Rating: 5/5 (Read for Poetry for Children and Young Adults)

No Rating - Read for Poetry for Children and Young Adults

I was planning on participating in Contemporary-a-thon again this year but got wrapped up in school stuff and had a whole ordeal with my car, so this is the only book I ended up reading during that week. It is about a college student named Alice who has just gone through a breakup because she is asexual. Alice is tired of people not accepting her for sexuality and she is learning to stand up for herself and her identity. I really liked this book. I love reading about characters who are close to the same age as me, as their stories and experiences are a little more relatable. Both the main character and the love interest were people of color and there was quite a bit of diverse representation that I appreciated. Overall, it was a cute story that also covered some heavier topics. Rating: 3/5